


Clinging to a Storm

by orphan_account



Series: The Institute of Voltron [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Paladins are the soccer team, at the Institute of Voltron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9601556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A series of events bring two Paladins clashing together. Yet, the more time Lance spends with the Dark Paladin, the more intrigued he becomes with the man. Personalities clash together before finally forming a bond that is worn, but never broken.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teabrows.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=teabrows.tumblr.com).



"WHAT!? HOLY FU..." Lance dropped his head to his desk and groaned. Taking a deep breath, the Paladin tried to restore his composure before speaking into the phone in his right hand.

"What happened to him?" Lance asked.

Shiro’s voice came over the phone. "I'm not too sure about the details myself, but it had something to do with an equipment error..."

"Well... Is he alright?" Lance asked after a few moments of silence.

"Matt?" Shiro at the other end of the line spoke, "Yeah, he should make a full recovery. There is definitely no way he can make it for tomorrows soccer match though, we will need to find a substitute for our center forward..."

Lance moved to hang up the phone. “Alright, Thanks Shiro. I’ll see what I can do.”

Unable to suppress his frustration, Lance heaved a heavy sigh before speaking to the other Paladin in the room with him.

"Any ideas, Pidge?" Lance inquired, sounding hopeful. Sadly, Pidge quickly extinguished the small glimmer of hope in his voice.

"Sorry, Lance, I would say ask Rax or Shay, but both of them are back home for the off season." Pidge heaved a sigh similar to Lance's. "Well..." Pidge continued after a short pause, "We could just withdraw... I mean the tournament we put together was just a little fun competition anyways... Besides"

"No!" Lance interrupted abruptly. "We should stick this through to the end."

Pidge let out a small chuckle. She knew full well that Lance would never choose to give up on a competition, it simply went against his nature.

"Maybe you could take center forward?" Lance inquired, sounding doubtful about his own suggestion.

"Me?!" Pidge questioned almost incredulously. "No, no, no, no, no..."

"We even made it all the way to the finals..." Lance grumbled with frustration.

"Well..." Pidge spoke up hesitantly.

"What?" Lance questioned immediately.

"There is one person that could take center forward..." Pidge paused before quickly adding on "You definitely won't like it though..."

"Who!" Lance demanded instantly, sounding hopeful once more.

"Keith..."

Lance's heart sank instantly upon hearing the name. Keith was definitely a person that he preferred to avoid whenever possible. Though he didn't know him well, Lance had heard enough rumors about Keith's instability along with his caustic attitude. He had heard all about how Keith got his nickname as the Dark Paladin on and off the soccer field.

"Lance?" Pidge questioned hesitantly.

"Oh, uh... sorry?" Lance quickly replied as his attention quickly snapped back to their conversation.

"You're not seriously going to ask him are you?" Pidge inquired.

...

...

...

"Lance..." Pidge spoke in a suddenly concerned tone.

"It's not like we have a better option." Lance replied, sounding more confident than he actually was.

"You can't be serious..." Pidge started before Lance cut her off.

"I am." The Blue Paladin stated flatly. Pidge heaved an exasperated sigh.

"Well... Just be careful... okay?" Pidge replied, sounding slightly nervous.

"Yeah... I'll see you tomorrow." Lance answered and left to go downtown.

A quarter of an hour later, Lance found himself before a large apartment complex.

_Here goes nothing..._ Lance thought to himself.

Although the Institute of Voltron offered all manner of housing for its students, Keith was among the few that resolutely refused to move into one of their apartments. Far too prideful and much too distant towards the other students, Keith chose to stay in his own home, namely an apartment downtown of the Institute.

As Lance strode up the creaking wooden steps to the apartment, he felt a sense of unease wash over him; a feeling of dread which could only be attributed to having to deal with one of the Institute’s most notorious injurers in Paladin team history. However, the Paladin steeled himself and continued up the path, resolutely determined to accomplish his goal.

Upon reaching the ominous front door to the apartment, Lance reached out and hammered powerfully on the dingy black metal. The pounding created a hollow ring that reverberated throughout the entire apartment.

Silence.

Though he usually had a fair amount of patience, Lance found himself unusually agitated. He pounded the door again, creating more obnoxious ringing.

Again, only silence rewarded his efforts.

Annoyed, Lance backed away slightly, intending to smash the door open if he had to. Gritting his teeth, Lance steeled his will and tensed his muscles in preparation to break the gate down... Until the door creaked open slightly. Even further annoyed, Lance rolled his eyes as he rudely shoved the door open entirely and wandered into the apartment complex. Instantly, Lance felt dwarfed by the massive, spacious rafters that towered above, more a loft than an apartment. Again, the Paladin swallowed the lump in his throat.

Clearing his throat slightly, Lance mustered the courage to shout.

"KEITH!" He yelled. His voice bounced about the loft, creating an echo.

Silence...

Breathing in again, Lance prepared to shout again until an annoyed voice spoke out from behind him.

"Shut up. You're too loud."

Whirling instantly, Lance searched for the source of the hollow, annoyed voice. It only took a few moments to find it. Perched atop a sit-in windowsill was Keith, laying on his stomach with his head cradled in the palms of his hands. It was evident that Keith had been sitting there for a long time and had definitely heard Lance's knocks; only he chose to entirely ignore the Paladin's attempts to grab his attention.

Mildly annoyed, Keith spoke again.

"What do you idiots want from me now?"

Lance cringed slightly at Keith's caustic greeting, but he was already far too annoyed with the ex-Paladin to allow Keith to bully him around.

"We need you." Lance stated flatly in a voice that clearly exhibited his annoyance over the fact that he actually needed the man’s aid.

Keith laughed in response to Lance's statement, his cold, hollow voice echoed gratingly off the walls of his apartment.

"Of course you need me." Keith stated with a cocky smile. "The real question is... What is it that I need?"

Lance frowned at Keith’s lack of humility, or rather lack of even the slightest amount of politeness. With a short breath, Lance quickly recomposed himself.

"You don't need anything." Lance replied, making small shooing motion with his hand. "Besides, weren't you the one who loved being sent to the field in order to 'show off'?"

Instantly, Keith's mouth twisted into a scowl; the Paladin was doing a good job of pushing his buttons. Even more, he was brushing him off. Him. The Dark Paladin. Rising from his perch atop the windowsill, Keith gently jumped down to the apartment floor. The moment his feet touched the ground, a hostile aura erupted from Keith himself. With a swift gesture, Keith sneered at Lance.

"YOU are the one asking ME for help." Keith spat angrily, "Remember that fact, you little punk."

A part of Lance was tempted to continue prodding the Dark Paladin with subtle insults, but Lance held his tongue, knowing that Keith was actually right.

"Alright, alright..." Lance sighed, rolling his eyes with exasperation and trying to appear unimpressed by Keith's display of aggression

"Just show up at ten tomorrow at the field, alright?" Lance finished.

A brief moment of silence passed as Keith skeptically folded his arms, raising one hand to his chin as he weighed his options. On one hand, going to the field implied he would be fighting alongside the Paladins in their petty games. On the other hand, he was bored. Really bored.

Subconsciously, Keith frowned as he tried to come up with more reasons not to help the Paladins team. Maybe

"Please?" Lance hesitantly interrupted Keith's train of thought.

Instantly, Keith's looked back up at the Paladin.

"What?" Keith snapped, unsure if Lance had even said anything.

"Please." Lance repeated uncomfortably. "It's the finals..."

Keith blinked quizzically before returning to being rude and obnoxious.

"Why are you still here?" He inquired in a mildly offensive tone.

"Umm..." Lance stuttered as he tapped the toe of his boot on the floor, awkwardly waiting for an answer from the man.

"Well...?" Lance pushed, trying to get some form of confirmation from Keith.

"I'll think about it." Keith snapped, annoyed with Lance's persistence. "Now get out before I throw you out."

Although he wasn't entirely satisfied with Keith's answer, Lance had little choice but to comply with the man's wishes. Staying would clearly only push the Dark Paladin towards refusing his request.

"Alright..." Lance sighed almost disappointedly as he turned and slouched out the door, feeling as though he had failed.

When Lance disappeared from his sight, Keith scowled again.

"Paladins..." Keith spat viciously before turning around and vanishing into the depths of his apartment.


	2. The Finals

Twenty-four hours passed all to quickly for Lance. Anxious and impatient, the Paladin had a difficult time removing his mind from constantly worrying about whether or not they would have a replacement player for their center forward. His thoughts even made the idea of catching restful sleep completely out of question. So, instead of restlessly tossing about in nonexistent sleep, Lance spent the entire night and early morning wandering about the Institute of Voltron. He returned to the dorms only to catch a quick meal before immediately heading over to the locker room in preparation for the match to come.

With thirty minutes to spare, three of his teammates strolled in at the same time. Lance greeted them all curtly with a nod of his head.

Before he could say anything, however, Pidge hurried forward and whispered nervously.

"Well... How did it go?" The Green Paladin asked, barely able to contain her curiosity.

Lance breathed in deeply before fixating Pidge with a raised eyebrow. Finally, Lance breathed in again before exhaling slowly and speaking.

"Hope for the best." Lance answered, trying to sound confident that the Dark Paladin would show up.

His confidence seemed to comfort the Green Paladin. That is, until another twenty minutes had passed.

"Lance, where is he? We need to get ready!" Pidge whispered anxiously. Behind her, Hunk and Shiro were having a much more lighthearted conversation. Lance, however, was too worried to pick up on the small snippets of their conversation. He glanced at the clock which was ticking inevitably towards ten o'clock AM.

"Hey Lance!" Shiro suddenly called out, startling the Paladin out of his concern.

"Yeah?" Lance answered, his voice shaking slightly in anxiety.

"Who is taking center forward?" The Black Paladin inquired curiously.

"I... uhm..." Lance glanced at Pidge desperately.

"I am, loser." A familiar hollow voice echoed out from behind them, saving Lance from having to lie or give an explanation.

Without looking back, Hunk and Shiro both froze. Glancing at each other, they both shared a grimace.

As he made his way to the group, Keith swiveled his head, scanning the faces and heads of the four other players around him.

Immediately he frowned. They were all cheerful Paladins. And worst yet, they were all staring at him.

"What." Keith snapped in an annoyed tone, "Prefer that I leave you to lose?"

Instantly, Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge broke their stares and searched frantically for some other object to focus on. Lance, on the other hand, didn't break his gaze. Instead, he directly addressed the Dark Paladin.

"Keith. Thank you for joining us." Lance spoke in a hurried but courteous voice.

The polite greeting earned Lance a huffed up glare from Keith. It was clear that Keith felt a certain degree of satisfaction from forcing Lance to be so polite to him. Lance, however, chose to ignore the rather smug glare from the Dark Paladin.

"Alright, now that we are all here..." Lance paused to glance at each player in turn, '"We are going up against Galra in this final match. Their roster includes Sendak, Prorok, Lotor, Haxus, and their newer players.”

"They have a pretty good team, but we've made it this far. Keith, you're mainly up against Sendak so do your best early, but watch out for his feints. He’ll be a pretty tough match for you so"

"Match me?" Keith interrupted rudely with a harsh laugh. "There is no one who can match me!"

"But"

"And don't tell me how to play, I know full well what I am capable of." Keith snapped, refusing to acknowledge his own shortcomings.

Lance bit his lip in order to hold himself back from correcting Keith and his childish beliefs.

"Alright then..." Lance muttered with a sigh, "Let's go. The rest of the team is already on the field."

With that, all five players moved from the locker room to the entrance to the field.

Being summoned to play for a team he left was not something that Keith particularly enjoyed. As he stepped onto the field, Keith felt a familiar feeling of nausea wash over him. The Dark Paladin closed his eyes in preparation for the discomfort to come. Opening his eyes, Keith found himself gazing out across a familiar field. Artificial grass turf dotted torn up spots from other matches littered the field from goal to goal. Something humans had insisted was a necessity when they introduced soccer to the Galrans and Alteans.

Wanting to escape the presence of the Paladins as much as possible, Keith quickly jogged out, taking his place. Upon entering the field, Keith took a moment to scout out the teams, wondering if any of them would be talking smack before it started. It never came.

Keith frowned slightly, smack talk rarely ever happened these days. The Paladins were always playing passively and all friendly. In other words, they played the game as boring as possible.

"Hmph..." Keith sounded huffily as he glanced at the clock. Another thirty seconds until the fun began.

"What's your name, punk?" Keith sneered at the second forward near him.

"Enkor!" the player replied immediately sounding happy that Keith asked. He made the mistake of continuing to speak, "It's short for Enkorian, I'm named after"

"Shut up!" Keith roared angrily. "I asked your name, not your life story, you spineless wimp!"

"...sorry..." Enkor replied meekly. The sound of the player's terrified voice gave Keith some amount of satisfaction. He must be a newer player for the Paladins.

"You better be." Keith replied darkly. "And you better do a good job."

"...okay..." Enkor replied even meeker than before.

The buzzer sounded.

Keith was waiting for that. Moving around the slower Enkor, Keith turned to see if Shiro would be able to cleanly pass the ball to him. After a few moments of Lotor harassing Shiro’s movements, Lotor snagged the ball and was immediately engaged by both Pidge and Lance. Keith's frown deepened as he moved towards them.

‘Paladins...’ Keith thought venomously as he waited for an opening, rapidly losing patience before moving back to his position.

Eager to return, Keith didn't even hear Lance thank him for taking the initiative. The moment he arrived before the enemy goal, Keith's previous annoyance evaporated instantly. Sendak was already eyeing him up for being so close to the goal, but he wasn't too concerned about the Galran. Instead, Keith quickly located the enemy full back with the worst balance and moved into their guarding area.

The poor guy looked unsettled with Keith so close and began to lose his nerve. Seems his reputation preceded him.

While Keith was preoccupied, Sendak immediately took the opportunity to focus on the rest of the field. Unfortunately, Keith was far from generous to just allow the Galran to have undivided focus.

Instead, Keith moved to flank the goalie in case his team saw he was open. Sendak backed off immediately, not wanting to allow too much space to the Dark Paladin.

The game continued for several minutes with neither side taking advantage of the other, only Keith was more than irritated at his team’s inability to get the ball anywhere near the goal, no matter how good their defense was. At this point, Keith was moving dangerously out in the middle of the dead zone directly between his team’s goal and the Galrans’. Suddenly, from out of mid field, a pass made it through the Galran defense and flew out and struck the Dark Paladin, bounding into his leg. Grimacing in pain, Keith reacted immediately, moving the ball around the defenders and shot towards the enemy goal. A metal clang indicated he had not hit his target, but he was able to get the ball again as it bounced back off the goal’s edge. Unfortunately, he was still far from out of danger. Emerging from Keith’s peripheral, Enkor darted with speed that was surprising for such a meek player.

Recovering from the distraction slightly, Keith backed away, trying to escape from the two players closing in on him. Playing another feint in front of Enkor, who seemed almost clueless on what to do, Keith attempted to shake the two defenders without Enkor’s help.

"On your right!" A voice suddenly sounded. It was Lance. With a quick glance, Keith's eyes caught a slight blur in the distance as Lance sprinted towards them at top speed. Before Lance could arrive, however, Sendak nimbly spun towards the Dark Paladin, simultaneously stealing the ball and elbowing into Keith with a powerful jab. Keith cried out in pain as Sendak played dirty. Despite being in pain, Keith fought back, shoving into Sendak who was already winded from tousling with the Paladins’ defense for so long. Keith attempted to further hamper his movements, but the Dark Paladin’s efforts were not enough to earn the ball back. With Sendak greatly distracted, it was Enkor, surprisingly, that managed to nab the ball and have a clear shot to the Galran goal. With the enemy defense closing in on Enkor, Keith called to his temporary teammate player.

"Shoot!" Keith screamed at Enkor, desperate to at least keep Sendak occupied before he fell to the Galran’s dirty tricks. Within a few milliseconds, Enkor reacted.

Only he passed. To the wrong person. Rather than shooting true, Enkor passed the ball Keith directly into range of Prorok. Instantly, the large Galran took advantage of the confusion before passing down the field to Lotor, who was waiting on the Paladins’ side of the field for the ball to be recovered. Completely caught off guard, Keith found himself momentarily paralyzed in disbelief with what was happening. Already in pain and frustrated, Keith shut his eyes in preparation for the inevitable. Within a heartbeat, Sendak managed to knock Keith down. He collapsed as pain and disbelief flooded his mind.

“And Galra takes back the ball!”

“Score!”

...

...

...

After a time out was called in a few moments, Keith found himself at his team's bench once more. Keith was absolutely livid.

"Are. You. Kidding?!" Keith screamed at Enkor.

"...sorry, I'm so sorry!" Enkor whimpered pathetically. He tried to focus on the bright side of the situation, "At least it was close, you almost had an assist!"

"I don’t care!" Keith snarled, sounding even more furious than before "I should’ve had that score, I should’ve had first point! At the very least you could do one thing right!"

Preoccupied with berating the player, Keith didn't notice as Lance moved behind him.

"My apologies for not arriving sooner, Keith..." Lance addressed the Dark Paladin somewhat apologetically. Keith briefly glared at the paladin before refocusing on his player.

"Mess up again and I will score you!" Keith screeched in a voice so loud that even Hunk could hear him from the goal.

Wincing slightly at the evident fury in Keith's voice, Lance took a moment to ask his coach a few questions during the timeout.

"Allura?" The Paladin inquired as he took a swig of his water bottle.

"Yes, Lance?" his coach answered immediately.

"Who is supporting Keith in center-forward?" The Paladin asked politely.

...

"Allura?"

"Uhm... I don't think it's a good idea to say, Lance..." Allura answered hesitantly. It was unusual, considering that Allura and Lance tended to get along fairly well.

"What's wrong? Who is it?" Lance pressed on, his curiosity piqued. The Paladin promptly felt Allura sigh in subdued exasperation.

"It's Enkor..." She finally replied in a regretful voice.

"Oh god..." Lance said aloud. Instantly, the Paladin asked another question, "Why is he still playing? Why wasn't he replaced after what he did to Matt?!" Lance demanded, clearly displeased and worried at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Lance, there were no other players on hand! I tried to have him removed, but there wasn't anyone to replace him!" Allura replied, clearly just as distraught as Lance was.

"This isn't ending well..." Lance muttered to himself before quickly refocusing on the match.

Ten minutes later, Lance's premonition turned out to be all too accurate. With himself shoved up to Sendak's position, Keith noticed Enkor charging his way towards the opposition. A quick glance at his team behind him quickly told Keith that Hunk was far too busy fending off Prorok alongside Lance. It didn't take long for Keith to head down to follow Enkor in order to prevent another mishap or perhaps even score for himself.

"Aaargh!" Shiro's painful grunt met Keith's ears. Prorok landed a low blow on the Black Paladin. Were the referees simply blind this game? He smirked, knowing that the Paladin was in pain. None the less, he doubled his speed. Pidge, on the other hand, reacted immediately, attempting to separate Shiro and Prorok, and taking the ball. The Black Paladin recovered enough to begin making his way back towards his team’s defense. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough. With a well-placed sweep, Lotor took action against the Black Paladin and friend, knocking both players to the grass. Haxus took advantage of the clumped up pair to steal the ball, and before he could move further towards the Paladins’ goal, Keith burst around Haxus. Using his surprise at Keith’s out of position appearance in mid field, Keith then continued his movement by throwing a cocky smirk at the stunned Galran before finally turning and taking a long power shot from midfield to the enemy goal.

Reacting quickly, Haxus dove to stop the ball no one was prepared for approaching the other side of the goal. Keith smiled as the Galran flopped to the ground, and his shot continued on.

“Score!”

Unfortunately, Keith was far too thirsty to simply be satisfied with one score, he wanted more. Ignoring Enkor, who was attempting to congratulate him, Keith took off to mid field where the ball would be reset.  Upon reset, Keith nimbly moved side to side, no longer caring for positions, despite his teammates’ outraged faces. The Galran mid fielder dodged Keith's first steal as one of his abrupt changes in direction caused Keith to misplace his footing. Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky on the second. Securing the ball, Keith kicked the ball directly towards the two Paladins open on the Galran side of the field. Also unfortunately, Enkor had secured the ball as it moved away from Keith. Again, Keith turned to calling upon his temporary teammate who was simply too slow for Keith, who was quickly open again.

"Pass, you idiot!" Keith roared at Enkor. Enkor reacted instantly, launching the ball to the nearest player.

...

Only the nearest player wasn't a Paladin; it was Haxus. The Galran barely blinked as the ball came his way, quickly passing it onto the Paladin’s side of the field. Keith's fury boiled uncontrollably as the ball made its way and the cheerful announcer’s voice soon came across the field.

“Score!”

The buzzer for a short fifteen-minute break did nothing to calm Keith.

Even more livid than before, Keith furiously made his way to the bench to cool off during the break. Enkor, on the other hand, was already preparing for the verbal abuse to come, and held out a fresh water bottle to Keith in an attempt to soften his anger.

"Sorry! I panicked, I'm so sorry, please"

"I. Will. Destroy. You!" Keith screamed at the new Paladin, taking the offered water bottle. "I won’t just destroy you, I'll annihilate you..." He paused briefly to draw in a breath and take a drink.

"I'm so sorry... please just give me another"

"Shut up!" Keith blasted as he made it back to the bench. After sitting down, Keith took a few deep, breaths before speaking again.

"If you so much as even think... about playing with me ever again... I will destroy you." Keith seethed in a dangerously low voice that dripped with venom. Enkor barely even whimpered in response.

"Thank you for the assistance, Keith..." Pidge spoke behind him. Keith whirled around to steal a glance at the speaker.

"Whatever." Keith replied, clearly too engulfed by his own rage to properly address the Green Paladin. With that, Keith waited out the remaining minutes before heading onto the field once again, still fuming with anger. As he moved further away from the bench, however, Keith quickly noticed an uncomfortable numbness in the left half of his face along with difficulty seeing out of his left eye. Hesitating slightly, the Dark Paladin brought a hand up to his face. Nothing. He couldn't feel anything. Keith tried to turn around, but his movements were sluggish and dull as though his body wouldn't do what he was trying to do. Abruptly, pain flickered in his body, causing the Dark Paladin to collapse to his knees. Completely uncertain of what was happening, Keith attempted to ask Enkor if something was wrong.

"Wwhat... is happening?" Keith gasped.

No reply.

"Keith, are you alright?" A voice suddenly pierced his mind. It was Lance. Feebly, the Dark Paladin tried to answer with a rude reply, but he couldn't even do that. His body simply wouldn't move.

"Lance, something is happening, I don't know what, Enkor isn’t saying anything and ran off refusing to say anything!" Allura suddenly spoke to Lance, her voice was agitated and anxious as she moved towards the locker room. From the entrance to the locker room, Lance suddenly heard a loud crash, followed by the sound of scuffling as though there was a fight breaking out.

"Stop that, Enkor!" Lance suddenly heard Allura yell out, "Explain yourself! What are you!"

Abruptly, Lance's heard an even bigger crash. Fearing the worse, Lance glanced at Keith who had collapsed into a heap on the grass.

"Guys! Stop the match!" Lance yelled, gravely concerned that something had gone horribly wrong.

Only, Lance was mistaken. The horror was only about to begin. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw a sudden convulsion from the Dark Paladin.

"Oh no...!" Lance thought, panic quickly rising in his mind. Immediately, Lance began moving towards the Dark Paladin. Ten meters away, however, Lance was knocked to the floor by an explosive surge of energy. As he recovered, Lance yanked his eyes open just in time to witness a huge flash of light erupt from around Keith. The surge of energy crackled dangerously as it struck the surrounding area before repeatedly striking Keith. Once the energy contacted Keith, it seemed to latch onto Keith, violently electrocuting him.

Keith screamed.

It was a horrid cry of pure agony; one that echoed throughout the entire field, sounding as though Keith were being burned alive. From his position, Lance watched helplessly as Keith's back arched backwards and his eyes rolled backwards into his head. Finally, it stopped. Instantly, Keith collapsed back into a heap, his body still crackling with electricity and his clothes smoking slightly.

"Medical team!" Lance screamed at the top of his lungs. Without a moment's hesitation, Lance rushed to Keith. The sight was grim. Several parts of Keith's body were burned black by energy, and the ones that weren’t were a purple shade seen in Galrans’ skin tones. Doing his best to ignore the smell of burnt flesh, Lance heaved the Dark Paladin onto his shoulders and hauled the Dark Paladin as fast as he could back to his team's bench, hoping that the Altean magic of the medics would be able to heal Keith.

Kneeling down by his side, Lance felt for Keith's pulse. Thankfully, it was still active. After a few seconds, a loud siren sounded from within the field, signaling a pause to the battle and the entry of several Altean medics. From around Lance, several pillars of light beamed down from the sky and three medical players emerged from each pillar, teleported there from the medical wing. Lance stood up and backed away from the medics to give them room to attend to Keith.

"Lance! What happened!" A male voice called out. Lance lifted his eyes to glance at the speaker. It was Hunk; Shiro and Pidge not far behind him.

"Dunno..." Lance managed to croak. He glanced back at the medical team which was attending to Keith.

"Oh my god..." Pidge whispered in a hushed voice. The four Paladins stood off to the sidelines, watching in silence as the medical team did their best to bring Keith back to consciousness.

Then, everything changed. Instantly, the air around Keith became extremely heavy; dense, as though an immense amount of power was being concentrated in a single location. Recognizing the buildup of power, Lance reacted instantly.

"Hit the ground!" He yelled and dived into the medical team, tackling all of them to the grass and away from Keith's body. Not a second too soon. Seconds later, Keith's eyes snapped open, livid with absolute rage. Without even bothering to look around at where he was, Keith blindly released his pent up energy straight out. His power was undamped and pure. Violently, the surge of Galran energy ripped into the building next to the field and struck the wall next to the entrance to the locker room, easily penetrating the structure’s outer layer and tearing a hole that revealed the Paladins’ locker room. Without a moment's wait, Keith lifted himself off the ground and shot through the hole at the speed of a bullet. Exiting through the hole he just created, Keith emerged from the field and into the locker room. He was searching for only one thing. Enkor. Swiveling his head, Keith instantly located the player by a small bit of purple skin which was attempting to sneak out of the room and into the larger campus by closing the locker room door silently behind him. With similar speed as before, Keith shot to the door before unconsciously calling upon his newfound power and completely tearing off the metal door. Tossing the door aside, Keith's eyes darted about quickly, searching for the man responsible for his injury. Finally, he found him. Running with that same surprising speed as before, was Enkor. Keith's alarming entry was the perfect reason for him to leave as quickly as possible. As the two other players in the hallway turned in shock to see what had happened to the door, Enkor scrambled and attempted to flee down the hallway. Keith's face contorted with fury.

"Your life is mine to take!" Keith shrieked at the player. Using his unhinged power, Keith reached out to the man and forcefully yanked him back to the ground before him. Before anyone could stop him, Keith had already summoned an alarming amount of power around his fist.

Caving into his animalistic desire for revenge and destruction, Keith sent each and every single ounce of it into a slamming punch to Enkor’s torso.

The ground shook for a few seconds as the unleashed power pulverized the player's body, obliterating every trace of his prior existence into little more than a stain on the ground.

Finally, Keith stopped. Moving gently down to one knee on the freshly painted red ground, Keith sat back lightly before collapsing and panting heavily. Within seconds of the conclusion of his outburst, ten Altean warriors teleported in around him, surrounding him. Coran, the captain of the royal guard was also in attendance.

"Surrender at once, Keith, resistance will not be tolerated!" Coran yelled out warningly. Exhausted, drained, and wounded from both his outburst and the forced transformation, Keith shifted himself into a sitting position with his legs crossed. Still breathing heavily, Keith managed to shake his head and wave a hand in uncharacteristic surrender. The warriors swiftly closed in to subdue him. But by the time they reached him, Keith was already unconscious.


End file.
